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We’re launching Firefox 3.5 tomorrow (June 30th), the fastest Firefox ever! Over the last few months we’ve talked a lot about how people can help promote Firefox 3.5 and already received a lot of interest and buzz thanks to our 130+ community marketing team. Just watch Vineel Reddy’s Firefox 3.5 video to get a sense of the excitement brewing.

You might be wondering how you can pitch in on the actual launch day. Here’s a summary of all the ways you can help, but I wanted to call out a few things in particular:

Shiretoko Shock

Our campus reps came up with an awesome idea to create massive buzz on Twitter, Facebook, Mozillaca and more called “Shiretoko Shock.” (Shiretoko is the codename for Firefox 3.5, btw!) It’s going to require a little coordination, but it’s sure to make some noise.

Here’s what you do:

Regional shocks: Set your watch for 3:50 p.m.—to correspond to the new Firefox version number: 3.5. When it’s 3:50 p.m. (that’s 15:50 for those of you on 24-hr clocks) on launch day in your region make your move. We want you to tweet, blog, post to Facebook, and more. This will move around the world for 24 hours!

We’ll start at 3:50 p.m. in Brazil and move west, sending the Shock around the world one time zone after another.

Super Shock: The final Shock will be a biggie—the Super Shock—because we’ll all join in to celebrate at precisely the same time. No matter what time it is in your hometown, at 3:50 PM (BST) on Wednesday, July 1st, we’ll all go post crazy: tweeting, blogging, facebooking, and more! It will take place on:

Wednesday, July 1st

11:50 AM Pacific (San Francisco)

2:50 PM Eastern (New York)

7:50 PM GMT (London)

12:20 AM IST (New Dehli)

Thursday, July 2nd

2:50 AM CST (Beijing)

3:50 AM JST (Tokyo)

More details will be posted on Spread Firefox shortly.

Tracking our success

Throughout launch day and beyond we’ll need to track all of our promotional activity to see how we did and what worked. Please take a moment to fill out our activity tracker to share and collect:

Blog posts you created or found on Firefox 3.5

Mentions of Firefox 3.5 on Twitter, Facebook or Digg

Articles about Firefox 3.5 on news sites

Videos or photos related to Firefox 3.5

Details about Firefox 3.5 launch parties (this will be ongoing)

More!

Hoping you’ll help us get the word out tomorrow! If you have any questions, the community marketing team will be hanging out in #marketing on irc.mozilla.org all day.

We’re getting close to launching Firefox 3.5 and that means it’s time to start thinking about celebrating. Per tradition, our community has hosted launch parties all over the world to acknowledge all the hardwork and have a little fun. Here’s how to get in on the action by hosting your very own party!

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

Mead’s quote never ceases to inspire me! I thought a lot about this during AIDS LifeCycle a week or so ago — a few thousand people raised close to 11 million dollars for the S. F. AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center — plus, rode 500 miles! It’s pretty amazing to come back from that experience to officially launching Mozilla Service Week. While most people experience a bit of a funk post-LifeCycle, there’s been no let down here!

Not only does Mozilla Service Week create new opportunities for people to become part of the Mozilla Community and contribute (see Mark Surman’s post), but it gives folks a chance to look outward to their local communities or favorite public benefit organizations to see how they might put their web-saaviness or tech skills to good use! I encourage everyone to take a pause from the hustle and bustle, and think about how you can help out your local community or a non-profit — a few ideas:

Teach senior citizens how to use the Web.

Show a non-profit how to use social networking to grow its base of supporters.

Install a wireless network at a school.

Create Web how-to materials for a library’s computer cluster.

Refurbish hardware for a local computer center.

Help a non-profit update its website or database.

And, more!

We’ll be adding more languages and partners over the summer with the actual week of service happening Sept. 14 – 21, 2009. I’m really looking forward to the difference we can make. We set a Guinness World Record after all!

Just getting the program together has been an awesome collaboration. Austin King does a great job explaining everyone’s contributions, but I did also want to call out everyone who helped. Thanks team!